To the Moon, last year’s independently developed surprise smash hit, will finally see its official retail release: today Lace Mamba Global announced to publish retail versions of the PC adventure game worldwide, starting in the UK and Ireland on July 06th, 2012, followed by releases in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on August 31st, 2012, and soon also in further territories.

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To the Moon is an exciting and unique storytelling project, involving gameplay elements of classic point & click adventures as well as role-playing games. Games journalists and users lauded the game for its story and characters, as well as its exceptional storytelling. Gamespot calls it “one of the most authentic and human stories told in a game in some time”, and later on awarded To The Moon the “Best Story” trophy of the Game of the Year Awards.

To the Moon, independently funded and developed by Kan Gao and his team Freebird Games, tells a story of a technology that allows to alter a person’s memories:Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts have rather peculiar jobs: In the year 2060, they control this technology that allows doctors to weave artificial memories, such that a patient can request attempts to alter their mind, and wake up with memories of things that didn’t actually happen.However, since these new memories are permanent, the conflict between them and the existing authentic memories clash in such a way that it ceases the person’s ability to properly function.Thus, the operation is only done to people on their deathbeds, to fulfil what they wish they had done with their lives… but didn’t.The technology requires the doctors to step into the memories of the patient, which are reconstructed as interactive scenes. The doctors then gradually traverse backwards through memories of the patient’s life until they reach childhood — at which point, the wish of the patient in present time would be transferred over.Along with the doctors’ influence, the patient (as a child) could then lead an entire different life inside their head, working toward and fulfilling their dying wish themselves.And if all goes well, they would wake up, having lived the dream life they never had, and embrace a brief moment of blissful fulfilment. Shortly after, they’d draw their last breath.John, the protagonist of To the Moon, is a patient of Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts, and both doctors are about to fulfil his last wish: To weave the memory of having become an astronaut and visited the Moon.

Additionally to winning the “Gamespot – Best Story of 2011” award, To the Moon was listed by Wired as one of “The 20 best videogames of 2011”, won the “Editor’s Choice for best singleplayer Indie 2011” award from IndieDB and became finalist in the “Excellence in audio” category at the 2012 Independent Games Festival.